Israel launched air strikes against the Gaza Strip at dawn on Tuesday, killing 15 people and wounding 20 people, including women and children.
Among the dead were three military leaders of the Islamic Jihad movement, so what do we know about them?
Jihad Al-Ghannam:
He is Jihad Shaker Al-Ghannam, Secretary of the Military Council of the Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Jihad Movement.
Al-Ghannam was born in 1961 and is a resident of Rafah. He joined the Islamic Jihad Movement in the late 1980s.
He participated in training the movement’s fighters in Sudan and Beirut, established the Al-Quds Brigades and supervised the recruitment of fighters in the movement in the occupied West Bank.
He also assumed command of the southern region in the Gaza Strip in the Al-Quds Brigades, and recently he was assigned the responsibility of the secretariat of the Military Council of the Al-Quds Brigades.
His house was bombed several times, and in 2001 he was seriously injured, during which he lost both his feet and part of his hands.
He previously survived several assassination attempts, the most serious of which was in 2014, when his mother, brothers and cousins were killed.
Israel accuses him of having recently been responsible for coordinating and transferring funds and weapons between the Palestinian Jihad and Hamas movements, and has participated extensively in planning operations targeting Israel from the Gaza Strip, according to a statement by the Israeli army.
Khalil Salah Al-Bahtini
He is Khalil Salah al-Bahtini, “Abu Hadi,” a member of the Military Council of the al-Quds Brigades in the Gaza Strip and commander of the northern region there.
He is 45 years old, as he was born in the Al-Tuffah neighborhood of Gaza City in 1978.
Abu Hadi had joined the Islamic Jihad movement early and was arrested at an early age.
He graduated in military action over the years and became a member of the movement’s military council in the Gaza Strip, and recently assumed command of the northern region.
He was subjected to several previous assassination attempts, and was injured in some of them.
Israel accuses him of approving and carrying out the military operations of the Al-Quds Brigades, and of planning to launch missiles at Israel.
Tariq Ibrahim Ezzedine
One of the leaders of the military action in Saraya al-Quds in the occupied West Bank.
He was born in Jenin, in the occupied West Bank, in 1974.
He joined the jihad movement at an early age, and participated in the activities of the stones uprising in 1987.
He was arrested several times, most recently in 2004, on charges of leading the Al-Quds Brigades in Jenin and carrying out military operations that killed Israelis.
He was sentenced to life imprisonment for his role in directing the Hadera military operation against Israel in 2001, and he spent more than ten years in prison, but he was released in a prisoner exchange deal in 2011, and he was deported to the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli army accuses Ezzedine of supervising the planning and implementation of armed operations against settlers in the occupied West Bank.
“Reader. Infuriatingly humble travel enthusiast. Extreme food scholar. Writer. Communicator.”
More Stories
Thousands of Muslim minorities defy the Chinese authorities to refuse to demolish the dome and minarets of a mosque
An agreement between Sisi and Erdogan to start immediately raising the level of relations between Egypt and Turkey
Trump’s Republican rival: America is “tending towards bankruptcy” despite the debt ceiling agreement